What did they do before air conditioning?

[CRuth]

I disagree. We never got ac in the house till I was teenager. We dealt with it but you bet we complained! The plant I work in now gets up to 100 and do you think we complain? Heck yes! But we deal with it.



I'd be very surprised if my Grandpa didnt' complain about the heat when he was building levees with his mule team.



Of course, right now the ac is keeping my nice and comfy

 

[klenger]

We had a pastor at our chuch who said "the west was not tamed with the six-gun, it was with air conditioning".

 

[nickleinonen]

Oh, I hate cold weather! I could freeze to death in 5 minutes below 40F.



Ryan

me too... although i do enjoy a dip through the ice into a frozen lake after a hot sauna [or rolling around in the snow bank] but i like the heat better. at work, i have on always 2 tee shirts, and i am comfortable up to 100*f. .



now when in a wide body locomotive doing running checks when self loading it, it can get a little warm. the engine rooms can get to +160*. the only time i get uncomfortable at work is when i end up doing repairs on a hot engine. laying on top of hot engine fixing a broken exhaust expansion joint is not the most fun, but it's work...

 

[Jim Fulmer]

As I was sitting on the line at Tinker AFB the other day when it was 100+ and about 125 on the plane when I walked up for preflight, I noticed that it bothered everyone else more than me, and I'm wearing the sauna suit (flight suit). I just think back to the fall of 92' when I first pulled in to the Persian Gulf..... holy cow, it was 114 and 96 percent humidity with a sea surface temp of 92 ( this was told to us) I do remember the temp and it was just stupid, like you can't imagine. This stuff around here is baby crap. I was told by the preachers wife they have a friend over in the sand and it was 145 there... ... that's bad.



Jim

 

[Dieselnut59]

My girlfriend and I agree on our favorite seasons here in Georgia... Spring and Fall! The Winter and Summer suck because of the humidity. A DRY 100 deg. f or a DRY 0 deg f. is bearable. Add our Georgia year-round humidity and the 50-70 deg. f range is all that is comfortable.

I don't HAVE to have air conditioning and seldom use it when I am driving because it does get your heat tolerance down when you get in and out of a cold vehicle. It makes the heat feel much worse. I really do enjoy it at night when I sleep. I cannot stand to be hot in bed. (unless it is for the right reasons )

I grew up having air conditioning in the house, but my brother and I had a seperate heat/ac unit upstairs in the 2-story house we were raised in. We never kept ours set below 80 f and were always comfortable. Fans are the key to feeling comfortable.

My girlfriend grew up with no a/c and has a high tolerance for heat. We talk about how a lot of our friends just can't take the heat or cold, especially the ones that stay in climate controlled offices, vehicles and houses all the time. Yes, I believe people are becoming less heat tolerant due to a/c use.

 

[SMolteberg]

I'm with you Dieselnut59, the spring or fall does it for me also. But I live in Norway where tourists and visitors claim we have two winters, the green winter is the worst since we turn of the heaters in our houses

I like it around 70-75, over that I start to get uncomfortable, we had 90-95 last week and boy was that hot. Thank god it lasted only a few days

 

[Vaughn MacKenzie]

Here's a map showing current heat indices (not actual temps). Lucky for you guys to the east the heat wave will be short-lived instead of weeks like it was in the West.

 

[Dl5treez]

The heat doesn't get me, it's the friggin' humidity.



My 83yo grandfather and I walked 36 holes of golf in 96* temps up in Washington state about a month ago, and did it again in 102* temps last week. It was hot, but not unbearable.



I try to golf when it's 90* here in South Dakota with the humidity and I'm dead..... can only imagine how crappy it is down in Georgia, etc. Yuck...

 

[Vaughn MacKenzie]

It was smokin' in the Dakotas again a couple days ago! Hottest place in the US on Sunday.

 

[Joe G.]

There are some old family stories about the heat in Arkansas. Here is one of them I got from a cousin:



"Does your family have the same weird sense of humor as my Cook/Georges? Mother told me the story about her great uncle (Pete I think) who was ill. It was summer time and very hot. He was lying in his night shirt and finally got just too hot and pushed the sheet down to the foot of the bed. Some ladies from the church came to call on his wife. His wife decided to bring them to the bedroom to say hello Uncle Peter. He reached down to pull up the sheet and pulled up his night shirt instead just as the ladies came to the door of the bedroom. "

 

[nickleinonen]

well, if i heard the news correctly, in toronto today, we set a record for heat today...

 

[WDixon27]

so... . if we pull our boys outta there and lob a nuke over the fence they may not notice?! :-laf i say we give it a try

I just think back to the fall of 92' when I first pulled in to the Persian Gulf..... holy cow, it was 114 and 96 percent humidity with a sea surface temp of 92 ( this was told to us) I do remember the temp and it was just stupid, like you can't imagine. This stuff around here is baby crap. I was told by the preachers wife they have a friend over in the sand and it was 145 there... ... that's bad.



Jim

 

[Cummins Pilot]

I cannot stand to be hot in bed. (unless it is for the right reasons )



My girlfriend grew up with no a/c and has a high tolerance for heat.

I think most women are like that. I had a GF that would still have a stack of covers on when it was 80f in her place. I'd be on the other side of the bed sweating to death. Then she'd give me the "look", oh heck no, I'm already about to pass out from the heat.



I know what you mean Nick by having to work on exhaust when its really hot. Aircraft comes in and needs work that darn engine is hot! And 85f doesn't help! In the winter its perfect!

 

[DennyDay]

We opened the windows and tried to run 50mph, when we had to go somewhere wasn't so long ago. 100 years ago people were alot tougher.



Denny

 

[loncray]

I must be part Alaskan - I'd rather it be 20 than 100. And I grew up in Wyoming with the occasional 105 degree day - but no humidity. Here in VA I'm dyin' from the heat/humidity combination. The way I figure it, you can always put on more clothes to get warmer, but you're limited on how much you can take off to get cooler.



Summer heat has precisely one advantage over winter - women can wear bikinis!

 

[CRuth]

Don't think so. If you'd had ac you'd have happily rolled up the windows. It doesn't have anything to do with toughness. A hundred years ago if you needed a tooth pulled you sucked it up and endured the pain, because you had to. If you'd had novocaine available you wouldn't have told the dentist "no thanks, I'm tough" you'd have said "shoot me up".

 

[RandyHamilton]

As I was sitting on the line at Tinker AFB the other day when it was 100+ and about 125 on the plane when I walked up for preflight, I noticed that it bothered everyone else more than me, and I'm wearing the sauna suit (flight suit). I just think back to the fall of 92' when I first pulled in to the Persian Gulf..... holy cow, it was 114 and 96 percent humidity with a sea surface temp of 92 ( this was told to us) I do remember the temp and it was just stupid, like you can't imagine. This stuff around here is baby crap. I was told by the preachers wife they have a friend over in the sand and it was 145 there... ... that's bad.



Jim

Jim,, Having ventured to the Persian Gulf in summer three times I can verify that the sea water injection temp (temp of the water 4 ft below the surface) was indeed 90 plus in july and august. Taking a shower and using only "cold" water, the temp was always at least warm. . Inport Bahrain in July the temp was 115 and the humidity was ALWAYS over 90. .



Think Death Valley with Humidity!! And on a lot of days it was cooler in Death Valley than in the gulf... .

 

[loncray]

Hmmm - folks a century ago might've been tougher, but they were dropping dead a lot sooner. Life expectancy at birth for 1906 was 48. 7 years, versus 77. 2 for 2001. I'll take AC, 30 more years (statistically) of life, and modern technology over any mythological 'toughness' any day of the week.

 

[Cummins Pilot]

Summer heat has precisely one advantage over winter - women can wear bikinis!

Around where I live you don't want to see the local women in bikinis.

 

[HOBrian]

I HATE HEAT!!!!! I'm the guy outside in the middle of winter plowing snow with the four wheeler and wearing just a sweatshirt. The only time I'm wearing a jacket is to ski. It's called a ski jacket for a reason... to only wear skiing!! :-laf



Did I mention yet I HATE HEAT!! :{